Tuesday, 5 June 2018

Who Reviews Doctor Who and the Tenth Planet by DJ Forrest



The Tenth Planet is the first ever Cyberman story and the last ever First Doctor story. It’s set on Earth in the South Pole in the year 2000, in a Space Station built under the snow, that tracks the lives of the astronauts in a space shuttle, desperately trying to return to Earth, when the Tenth Planet comes into view, and begins drawing on their energy.

From the start of the story the First Doctor is ailing. He’s ageing through the novel, and Ben the sailor, travelling companion in the TARDIS with Polly, a young girl who Ben calls ‘The Duchess’ notices more than once how old the Doctor is becoming.

The Cybermen are much different to those from later years, they, despite not showing any physical resemblance to humans, still seem to hold some of their elements. These, despite their silver exterior show a little humanity when Polly was taken to their space ship as a hostage, while Ben and the technicians worked in the radiation room.

They turned the heating up that kept their prisoner warm. I’m unsure if the Cybermen of today would have shown that much concern.

The Cybermen also were less abrupt in their confrontations with the humans in the Space Station on Earth. There was a touch of a human response in their voices. OK they did shoot and threaten to shoot some of the technicians, and they did eventually cut short the behaviour of the cigar chewing man in charge, but they weren’t all of declaring ‘Delete. Delete. Delete,’ every five seconds.

In fact, I don’t believe any of them uttered that at all.




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